Search the Blog & Forum

Saturday, December 30, 2006 - Sat, 30 Dec 2006

My functions to merge Tags into Behold files, and merge Tags from Behold files had a major flaw. They did not give enough info about what was going to be merged. So on I went to add this. It led to other cans of worms, since there were some parts of the merging that weren’t being done right and needed correction. Also displaying the information required adding a memo object onto a standard Windows Message Dialog, so I had to research how to actually do that. This took all week, but it’s almost there.

Meanwhile, I was checking out end-of year prices on computer monitors. My 7 year old 19 inch CRT is starting to show its age and has some ghosting that is getting more noticable. For me and what I’m doing (developing Behold), the best replacement would be two 17″ LCD displays. Two would allow me to develop and debug and compare results size by side in the two monitors. LCDs would be much easier on my eyes. 17″ would take less desk space, generate less heat, and not be as hard to switch views between as 19″. I spend many hours in front of my computer and need it to be as comfortable as possible. 17″ give 1280 x 1024 resolution. 19″ give the same except the pixels are a bit bigger - so a 19″ won’t help show more on the screen.

I don’t know what Boxing Day sales are like where you are, but here in Winnipeg they are just nuts. Best Buy and Future Shop are wall-to-wall people. They had a good quality Samsung 17″ monitor on sale for $150. I wasn’t willing to stand in line at 6 a.m. and I didn’t expect that they’d be sold out in the first hour.

Two monitors requires two graphics cards or one card with dual display capability. I’m not a gamer and don’t need a high-end card. But the $60 card on sale for $20 that I decided on was also sold out, both in-store and online. So I’ll just bide my time and I’m sure I’ll find a pair of monitors and a graphics card I like in the next few weeks.